The past fortnight for the British Hospitality Association (BHA) has seen many moves by the association to reassure the public in the aftermath of the 7 July bombings and the 21 July bombing attempts.

The approaching deadline for liquor licence applications, combined changes to the grading of guest accommodation and proposed changes to immigration controls has also meant another particularly busy week for the association.

Chief executive Bob Cotton attended a meeting of the Tourism Alliance, the industry umbrella body’s board, with tourism minister James Purnell on Wednesday 20 July.

Discussed at the meeting were: the cost of licensing; how Alcohol Disorder Zones will work; immigration controls and draft planning guidelines for tourism.

The chief executive also attended VisitBritain’s British Tourism Development Committee on the same day, which reinforced the need for contingency planning for such events as the 7 July and 21 July bombings.

On Tuesday 26 July, after a report from disability charity Leonard Cheshire called ‘No room at the Inn’ claimed “the UK’s leading hotel chains are failing to accommodate disabled people”, chief executive Bob Cotton was invited to counter the claims on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours consumer programme.

Speaking on the programme, Mr Cotton pointed out that the charity’s own research into 30 hotels did not bear out this bald statement.

At present, the BHA is pressing the hotel classification bodies for quick release of the promised consultation on grading criteria for the new harmonised GB-wide rating scheme.

While there is no set date for this, Bob Cotton has publicly stressed the need to release the full criteria behind the standards as soon as possible. “Otherwise we will end up with the same situation we did in 1998, when attempts to introduce common standards across the UK failed,” he said.